New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation. Here is New York, E.B.White, 1949 [Taschen, "365 Day-by-Day New York Calendar"]

Step 61 - Find Your Lifestyle
As I said in one of my recent posts – the world has changed and the way we live has changed. I honestly think it’s time to reevaluate some ideas and solutions about the life we want to l...

Do you even want to get married?
I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage recently (not about my own), because suddenly I spend a lot of time talking to married guys (just as friends). And I started to come...

Choose Your Own Relationship
I’m single so – naturally – I do think about guys and relationships. I’ve been thinking a lot of what type of a guy would actually make me want to be in a relationship. An...

What’s The Best Dating Advice?
There are plenty of advisors on the dating scene – there are videos and articles about every aspect of dating, with all these great pieces of advice: “What to do on a date,&rd...

Step 56 - Getting You Off The Hook.
I’ve done some thinking recently and tried to figure out the basic way people come up with an excuse. It’s a broad topic, but I’ve mostly experienced one response from variety o...

Williamsburg Is Over
Summer’s almost here, so I decided to take a walk in Williamsburg, and it just reassured me that… thinks are really over for this neighborhood. I moved to Greenpoint (a sister neighb...

Where is love?
Love has been on my mind recently (and probably has been unconsciously for a while now) and I started thinking about where to find it. I know it’s a pretty odd thing (...

I Can’t Help Women if They Don’t Want to Help Themselves

Ladies, I can’t cope with you. I really can’t, not anymore. I keep hearing women complaining about men. They complain how badly men treat them, how terribly guys behave towards them, what they expect from guys, etc. And I would love to help all of those women, but I just can’t – because they just don’t want to be help.

I have written about this a few times on Just Like NY – I have this theory that you know who you’re dealing with from the very beginning. There are certain types of behavior in a guy that are there since day one. And girl, don’t bullshit me you don’t see them. What you do, is you simply look the other way, hoping that they’ll be gone after a while. And even if you don’t see them (I still don’t believe you don’t!), just ask your friends. Introduce your guy to your closest friends and ask them their opinion. But, hey: LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY. They know you better than you’d think. They will notice if you’re treated with the respect you deserve. Ask them and LISTEN. It doesn’t mean that only because your friends say something, you should be immediately breaking up with the guy , but you MUST talk to him and ask him to change the behavior you don’t like. If you don’t speak up now, you’re just stupid. Why am I being so harsh…? Because you set a trap for yourself. You pretend that this thing doesn’t bother you, when in fact it makes you really unhappy. And what happens is, you’ll be miserable and you’ll explode one day. And he’ll be confused, because you knew those things about him from the beginning and you never said anything. And he’ll be angry at you now – and he has every right to be, because you suddenly want him to change.

I just simply DON’T GET IT. Why don’t you speak up at the beginning? Why…? Please explain it to me, because I really don’t understand. Your need to be with someone is so strong that you’re ready to sacrifice yourself…? For what…? Just for the sake of someone being there? How about the fact that this someone doesn’t even know you? Not to mention the fact that he doesn’t make you happy!

I know you all will say – it’s not that easy. I don’t agree with you again, it’s the opposite – it is very easy. You simply say: Listen, I really didn’t like the way you talked to me / I didn’t like what you said yesterday / I didn’t like the way you treated me last week. Say it right away, especially at the beginning of your relationship, when you’re still not that involved and your heart and head are still pretty clear. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will get.

It happens so often that I’m just really amazed. All women follow the same pattern – all of them. You have to understand one thing – you get exactly what you agree on. You AGREED on the way he is treating you right now, so why do you even complain? How am I suppose to help you now? You did it to yourself, girl. You failed, because you didn’t set clear standards for your relationship from the beginning.

The main problem is that I know very well most of you will not even listen to me. No matter how hard I will try to explain it to you, how many books or articles I would recommend (or write), I just know you won’t do it. You will set another trap for yourself, you will find excuses for him and wait for him to change (I fucking hate this attitude!). Yeah, feel free to do it. And then wake up with tears in your eyes and go to bed with the same tears, because you didn’t get the life you deserved. It’s not that you didn’t get it. YOU didn’t give it to yourself. Blame yourself this time. Please, be brave to speak up when it’s not too late yet. Because I truly believe that you really deserve the life you want. But you also have to believe in that – and that might be the most difficult step for you to make. It so happens it’s also the single most important one.